Subtronic nightmare continues...

I'd be inclined to look at Seacam's offering, as suggested above, if your budget will stretch.  You'll always get good support from them, and Seacam now use their own electronics in the Seaflash.

 

Alternatively it may be worth looking at Hartenberger - http://www.hartenberger.de/

 

expensive, but they are top end products much like the Seacam strobes (and have removable batteries as standard).

 

Steve

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Thank you Steve! I looked at Hartenbergers time ago but noone in the forums seemed to use them. They look really good and the website is very good and very explanating (is that a verb? ) I´ll check them. As for Seacam I´ll check but a friend of mine ordered a housing and a Seaflash in april and no news jet.....(and no news IS NOT good news!!! )

Fred Bavendam (aka Divegypsy) uses Hartenbergers - maybe worth mailing him

I get the impression he likes them from some of the posts he's put on wetpixel

Steve

I sent the following e-mail today to Subtronic:

Hello Tamara

Time has gone by and I still do not have my Alpha flash back from you in working order.

What is going on? Is your company still in business?

I need to inform my readers soon about the status of your company and the service it supplies.

John Bantin

Technical Editor

Diver Magazine

55 The High Street

Teddington

TW11 8HA

john@divermag.co.uk

www.divernet.com has more than 125,000 viewers with unique addresses each month world-wide.

Diver Magazine has an English-language circulation of more than 35,000 each month.

DYK magazine is a wholly owned Scandinavian subsidiary of Eaton Publications and works jointly with Diver Magazine on equipment tests.

Nice, John!

I can't believe that the Technical Editor of a german magazine would be getting as much of a run-a-round.

I did an article for Tauchen last week, so maybe that will help!

Alex

We have a big readership of divernet in Germany. It seems they like the English language or the English humour!

It seems the company may be in terminal decline!

Subtronic? No answer, came the stern reply!

Hip hip hooray!

I have got my Subtronic back. Finally. It broke on the Wetpixel trip in March and now it is mid August.

Anyway, it is on charge, now just to check if it is fixed...

Alex

Congradulations. If you don't mind, how much does service that good cost?

Hooray! It works again.

I am not sure of the price for the fix - as it is still a point of debate between the parties involved. Last time they fixed this problem it cost about 1/2 an Inon Z240!

Alex

...and they still haven't found mine!

Yours came back in the same box as mine, John.

I collected mine from Ocean Optics yesterday.

Alex

Thanks Alex.

I just e-mailed Steve to ask him if there anything he wanted to tell me!

(The problem with very relaxed people is that they tend to get surrounded by people who are not very relaxed at all!)

I'm all excited. Do you think it will work? I've forgotten what it looked like!

Regards

JB

Glad to hear it is resolved Alex and John - you guys have had a really bad time of it.

Here is today's e-mail from Subtronic!

Hello Mr. Bantin,

yes, it arrived on 31. July.

best wishes

Tamara Müller

Good old Steve!

This may come as a shock to some, although if you have followed this thread from the beginning maybe it won't be a shock at all. Despite finally getting the strobe back from Subtronic in full working order just a few weeks ago, EXACTLY THE SAME FAULT REOCCURRED AFTER ABOUT 20 DIVES!

That's right. I waited 4 months to get the strobe fixed and it lasted for just over a week of diving before exactly the same problem reoccurred!

I'm now pretty sure that it is the same strobe that keeps going wrong. The problem is that the strobe dumps a full power flash when set on 1/2 or 1/4 power (it starts intermittantly at first and then after about 100 flashes becomes perminant). I first had the problem in Bali in Sept 2005. And because I had a back to back Cayman trip I struggled through that trip with the strobe stuck on full power. Before sending it off to Subtronic who fixed it, returning it to me in time for my December/January trip to Cayman. The strobe worked well for most of that trip - only playing up on the last dive - and stupidly I put that down user error because it only effected a couple of shots (it was still at the intermittant phase). Next trip was Wetpixel shark trip in March and after the first dive I realised I had a problem and had to shoot the rest of the trip on Full power. After that trip it was returned to Subtronic. Who took until July to get it back to me - and I had it in time for going to Bali. Where again it lasted for about 20 dives before developing the same problem once again.

Anyone got any suggestions on how to fix this? Anyone know any offensive German swear words?

Unhappy Alex

HI Alex,

it looks likes your luck has run out with Subtronics (excuse the pun),

After all these problems it may be time to change manufacturer.

Andy

In Bikini I met an American with four Ikelites... though he didn't show any of his images. BUT: redundancy of critical parts is a good engineering principle, and having two (or three?) cheaper units might be a good idea. I know that the famous snapper image needed big strobe power to embrace the use of a telephoto lens, but how much power do you need? I haven't exhausted my Inons yet: this was shot with a 60mm and two Z220s on half and quarter power:

Tim

B)

Hi Alex, although I cant really help you with your subtronic problem, I feel your pain. I currently have 4 Sea & Sea YS90DX strobes at backscatter. They are (hopefully) currently repairing them (2nd time they have been repaired within 1 year), and they dont really know whats wrong with them except that the xenon tubes are damaged. Last time I had them repaired, 2 out of 4 showed the problem again within 1 dive trip.

Like you, I dive a lot, so I expect some issues, but right now this is becoming a little excessive.

Where oh where are the YS110s!

Cor

Alex,

If it's any consolation, your tale of woe has made a very serious impact on one person - me. After six years of endless problems with my Ikelite SS200s, I was seriously considering shelling out for subtronics in the hope of finally having that provided serious power and a reasonable expectation that both strobes might actually make it through a year without requiring major repairs. Or even a trip. (Yes, yes, I know, I know, Ikelite has a great record on servicing. Given the mean time-or-number-of-dives between breakdowns that I've experienced, I would suppose that they have to be good at service and repairs. But arranging to ship strobes to Ohio and back every 6-12 months isn't quite as convenient if you happen to live in Indonesia instead of LA.)

I'm using a pair of Inon 2000s and a pair of Sea & Sea YS90DXs. I miss the power and spread of the SS200s, but then I again I always missed that for at least part of the year every year since I bought them.

So if Subtronics aren't the answer, what is? I have a Hartzenberger dive light that I love which has worked flawlessly for more than three years. This has started to make me think. Does anybody here use their strobes? Could this finally be the ultimate strobe I've been looking for? (By which I mean, mainly, just that it would work most of the time.)

Frogfish

My other Subtronic seems very reliable. That one just works and works. But I know it will be months when I send it off to repare and I am off to Cayman at the weekend.

One of my group in Bali had a pair of nice Hartebergers with his D2X - I had a good look at them and they seemed very nice - but one of them flooded (minor) a couple of times.

Alex